


where the journey takes us

by lazyfish



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Adoption, Foster Care, Found Family, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-14 20:33:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29177244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazyfish/pseuds/lazyfish
Summary: Fitz and Hunter agree to be foster parents for S.H.I.E.L.D.; there are some twists and turns, but of course a happy ending.
Relationships: Leo Fitz/Lance Hunter
Comments: 6
Kudos: 13





	where the journey takes us

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KaytiKazoo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaytiKazoo/gifts).



“I still think you’re a little bonkers,” Hunter said as he sat on the floor of the spare bedroom of his and Fitz’s row home, squinting at the instructions that had come with the furniture he was attempting to build.

“You’ve told me that at least once a week since we got married,” Fitz said, amusement edging his voice.

“Well if you would stop doing crazy things I wouldn’t have to call you crazy, now would I?!” Hunter punctuated his question by finally managing to get the screw he was working on into place and brandishing the screwdriver triumphantly.

“Saying yes to Mack when he asks me a question isn’t that crazy.”

“It is when that question is _hey, Fitz, can you and Hunter take in a random baby if we need you to?_ ,” Hunter retorted. “He and Elena are just as capable of caring for infants. Some would say even more capable, given they have a child and all.”

“A child who would not be happy with being woken up by a crying baby in the middle of the night.”

“Like you’re going to be thrilled by that,” Hunter pointed out, twirling the screwdriver in his hand before returning to building the crib. “I’m just saying, love, you’re a bit of a grump when you don’t get your beauty sleep.”

“I’ll adjust.” Fitz sprawled himself out on the carpet and Hunter gave him a pointed look. Why the engineer wasn’t the one putting together the crib an actual human baby would be sleeping in was beyond Hunter, but he’d learned to pick his battles. 

“I’m going to need that in writing,” Hunter said, moving on to the next bar of the crib. 

“I’m getting a divorce.”

“You need to come up with more creative threats.” Hunter grinned. He’d been divorced before; it wasn’t as big of a deal as people meant it to be, especially when he knew Fitz had no intention of following through with it.

“I’m going to… disembowel you?”

“You go straight from divorce to disembowelment?” Hunter snorted. “Forget coming up with creative threats, you need to take a break from field work.”

“I am,” Fitz reminded him. “In case this baby thing actually goes through.”

“I do wonder about the legality of S.H.I.E.L.D. just… taking a baby,” Hunter mused. He had finished with one whole side of the crib and leaned it against the wall while he worked on assembling its mirror image. 

“It’s America,” Fitz said drily.

“Oi, don’t act like the exact same thing wouldn’t happen in England!” Hunter said, reaching out to kick his husband. “I didn’t listen to Bob lecture me for hours and hours and _hours_ to have my own husband spout the sort of shite she was lecturing me about.”

“In any case Mack assured me it’s totally above-board. Specialized foster care for S.H.I.E.L.D. assets or adversaries.”

“As long as we’re not going to end up causing some poor kid to end up like Daisy,” Hunter said. 

Fitz winced. “She looked over the system, Mack said. And it’s all hypothetical for now anyways.”

“I don’t think it’ll be hypothetical for long,” Hunter said. With S.H.I.E.L.D. gaining public respect and trust again they were running more and more missions, especially forward-facing ones. Mack didn’t put contingencies like this in place on a whim, and Hunter would bet his last dollar that Mack had asked them about fostering because he thought it would be a relatively urgent need. 

Fitz shrugged. “Either way, we need to finish the crib tonight.”

“There is no _we_ in this situation,” Hunter said with an arched eyebrow. “Unless you actually want to get off your arse and help.”

“I’ll consider it.”

“I’m getting a divorce,” Hunter muttered.

\---

As Hunter had anticipated, it was only a few days before their first foster assignment came in. He was about six months old and looked a fair bit like Hunter did as a child with his brunette hair and muddy hazel eyes. His mother was an Inhuman who went through Terrigenesis unexpectedly and was having trouble controlling her powers - which unfortunately involved a fair bit of fire. 

(Why someone was taking fish oil pills nearly five years out of date _and_ recalled was not in Hunter’s pay grade, but he was glad she had been able to call S.H.I.E.L.D. before she burnt down her whole block.)

They were only going to have the little bloke for a few days while his mother’s sister prepared for taking the baby in. Hunter hadn’t pried for details, mostly because he wasn’t actually at the meeting where the baby was handed over - that was all Fitz. And if Fitz didn’t think something was important to know? Well, it wasn’t all that important to Hunter, either.

“She said he likes his bottle colder than most babies,” Fitz fretted, flitting around the kitchen while Hunter stood in the corner with the baby in his arms. “The bottle warmer doesn’t have a _cool_ setting, Hunter!”

“Put it on the warmer and stop it halfway through the warming,” Hunter said calmly. “Love, he’s a baby. He’s not going to be permanently emotionally scarred because you gave him a bottle that was one degree too warm for him.”

“Yes, but -” Fitz sighed.

“It also doesn’t make you a bad da if you can’t get the bottle at the right temperature,” Hunter continued soothingly. It wasn’t difficult to guess the root of Fitz’s anxieties, and even though they’d been over him not being the same as his father ad nauseum, the insecurity was probably never going to go away.

“What are we doing?” Fitz sighed, leaning against the counter.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean…” Fitz sighed and raked a hand through his curls. “I’m ten seconds from having a breakdown about a bottle, Hunter. Am I really cut out for this?”

“I’m of the opinion that it doesn’t matter if you’re cut out for parenthood,” Hunter said, even though he was sure he’d given Fitz this speech before. “The best parents are the ones who are willing to put their children first, right? And that’s not something you’re born knowing how to do.” Hunter bounced the baby gently when he began to fuss, reaching a hand out for his husband. “Besides, we only have to survive… what, six weeks, Daisy guessed?”

Fitz nodded and took the offered hand, but didn’t address anything else Hunter had said.

“C’mere.” Hunter tugged Fitz closer, careful to avoid hurting the baby when he pulled Fitz into a hug.

“We’re learning,” Hunter said, pressing a kiss to the top of Fitz’s head. “Every new parent learns. If you don’t believe me ask your mum.”

Fitz leaned into Hunter’s embrace, and Hunter felt him take in a long, deep breath.

“It’ll be okay, love,” Hunter repeated. “You’ve got me, and I have it on good authority that I’m a stubborn son of a bitch.”

“Don’t curse around the baby,” Fitz said, almost automatically.

“He’s six months old, he doesn’t know that’s a bad word.”

“Not every child we take care of is going to be six months old,” Fitz argued.

“So you aren’t going to quit after this one?” Hunter prodded.

“I… no. But I may have several emotional breakdowns.” Fitz pushed his nose into Hunter’s chest and Hunter smiled to himself. That was a good sign.

“We have regular emotional breakdowns anyways. It’s the repression.”

Fitz groaned. “We shouldn’t be having emotional breakdowns! Parents are supposed to be emotionally stable!”

“Ah ah,” Hunter said, clicking his tongue. “Parents are supposed to give the _illusion_ of being emotionally stable. Besides, you’re in therapy, I’m in therapy, everyone’s in therapy. That’s a step in the right direction.” And Hunter knew for a fact most people who desperately needed therapy didn’t get it, so they were also a step ahead of some other parents. “Now, chop chop. The little bloke is hungry and soon that bottle will be too warm for him.”

Fitz peeled himself away from Hunter’s chest, looking somewhat less anxious. “Right. I can do this.”

“You _can_ do this.”

\---

“I don’t understand why she won’t just fall asleep!” Hunter said under his breath. He had been rocking their newest charge, a nine-month-old baby girl, for the last three hours, and she hadn’t so much as gotten heavy eyes. She had to be tired. She hadn’t napped all day, and according to the baby book Hunter head she was supposed to be spending most of her time asleep. Hunter just didn’t _understand_. She was fed, her diaper was changed, all that was left was for her to go to sleep!

“The book says she might be overstimulated,” Fitz suggested. He had been tasked with reading the section on sleep (for the fifteenth time) to figure out why the baby was having such a hard time. “New place, new people, new everything… and since she didn’t take her earlier naps her brain’s in overdrive trying to process everything.”

“Alright, so how do we fix it?” Hunter tried not to let his irritation edge into his voice, but it was well past midnight and he had been rocking for far, far too long.

“They suggested swaddling. And playing white noise.”

“Do we have a swaddle big enough for her?” They’d gotten a few basic baby supplies when they’d been fostering their first child, but since he had been younger many of them weren’t well-equipped for this baby’s size.

“I don’t know,” Fitz said. He left the baby book open to the page on sleep while he began rummaging through the drawers where they kept all their baby supplies. A minute later, he came up empty handed.

“And the white noise machine?” Hunter asked, a little desperately. They definitely had that one, and it’d been a lifesaver when their first foster baby was asleep. He woke up at the slightest sound, but with the white noise machine on Fitz and Hunter had been able to walk past his room without tiptoeing or waking him up.

Fitz found the machine, plugged it in, flicked the button to turn it on, and… nothing.

“What the hell?” Hunter asked, more to the universe than to his husband. The machine wasn’t that old, and it was expensive enough that it definitely shouldn’t have died so soon. The only explanation was that something out there hated Lance Hunter, specifically.

Fitz pressed the button a few more times, but still nothing happened.

Hunter shifted the baby into one arm so he could drag his hand down her face. She whined, displeased, and Hunter tried bouncing her to calm her down. All that did was make her cry more, and Hunter felt a bit like crying himself. He hated not being able to do anything to make this poor baby feel better. She didn’t understand what was happening to her, and she was probably exhausted beyond all belief, and Hunter wasn’t _helping_.

“Give me the baby,” Fitz commanded quietly.

“Leo -”

“Give me the baby,” Fitz repeated more firmly. “You’re tense. She can tell you’re tense. She’s not going to be able to sleep until you’re _less_ tense, and you’re not going to get any less tense until she does sleep, so you’re in a feedback loop. Now give me the baby.”

Hunter relented, handing the baby over to Fitz before taking his husband’s place in the rocking chair in the corner. He had tried rocking the little one in it earlier, but the hinges squeaked and made her even fussier than before.

“You can go to bed,” Fitz said as he began bouncing the baby. For some reason when he did it, she began to quiet. “You’ve been up too long.”

“But -”

“Lance, please. You’re not going to do either of us any good if you’re a zombie.”

He had a point, though Hunter could (and later would) protest that it took more than one night of interrupted sleep to make him a zombie. He’d been in the army, and that required a much, much worse sleep schedule than this.

“Wake me if you need anything.” 

“Of course.” When Hunter walked past so he could exit the nursery Fitz pulled him in for a quick kiss. It was enough of an assurance that Hunter felt slightly less guilty when he walked into the master bedroom, flopped onto the bed, and immediately fell asleep.

\---

“It’s been a long time since we’ve had anyone here,” Fitz said, startling Hunter. He had been looking at the empty nursery and hadn’t heard his husband come up behind him.

“I suppose we should be happy about that,” Hunter said. There being fewer babies whose lives were disrupted by S.H.I.E.L.D. was, objectively, a good thing. When part of his job was taking care of those babies, though, it made him feel kind of… empty, he supposed, when there were no more to take care of.

“We should be,” Fitz agreed. “I really thought that last one was going to stick.”

Their last placement before the dry spell had also been their youngest placement, just six weeks old when he’d come into their home. Mack hadn’t told them where the baby had been found or why he needed care, which was unusual - normally Fitz and Hunter got at least a part of the story. Something being far enough above both of their clearance levels that they didn’t get even a scrap of information meant that whoever the baby was related to was either very important, very dangerous, or both.

He had been with them for six months, which had also made him their longest placement. For a child that young, six months was also a long time. They’d seen the baby through milestone after milestone, and it was difficult _not_ to get attached watching him grow up before their eyes.

When Mack had knocked on their door, they’d expected him to say that the baby was cleared for adoption - not that he was taking him back.

That had been, in a word, devastating. Part of Hunter wondered if that was why Mack hadn’t given them any new placements in the six months since. If their friend had realized they were getting attached to every child who came through their home, maybe he had decided to set up other foster families within the organization. S.H.I.E.L.D. was big enough now that it could support multiple foster families, and since agents had a habit of shacking up with each other, it wasn’t like there was a shortage of couples he could ask.

That was the pessimistic way of looking at things, though, and despite everything he had been through in his life, Hunter couldn’t bring himself to become a pessimist. 

“We could register to be normal foster parents,” Fitz suggested quietly.

“Would we be allowed to tell the truth about… anything?” Hunter asked. Even though everything was all legal, it was a separate entity from the foster care system of their county, which made things… difficult would be a polite way of putting it. If they signed up to foster the old-fashioned way they’d probably have to stop doing it through S.H.I.E.L.D. - and no matter what they did, there was no guarantee they would get to adopt the children that came into their home. That had never been the primary goal of fostering to begin with, just an ancillary benefit.

If Hunter had his choice, they’d keep waiting until something came up through S.H.I.E.L.D., a child who really, desperately needed them. He was only one half of the relationship, though, and he was more than willing to hear Fitz out if his husband had a different view.

“You’re probably right,” Fitz said instead. “I’m not patient enough for this.”

“You and me both.” Hunter slung an arm around his husband’s shoulders, pulling Fitz in close to him. “Maybe we can use the down time to redecorate the nursery.”

“Or get a rocking chair that doesn’t squeak.”

“What about one of those fancy gliders?”

“We should really get two, since we both end up in here most nights anyways.”

They continued to toss ideas back and forth, and suddenly the empty room didn’t feel so empty anymore.

\---

“And we don’t know anything about her?” Hunter asked for what felt like the hundredth time. He hated to be _that_ person, but if he was going to be taking in a baby he wanted as much information as possible, and all of his questions being answered with _unknown_ wasn’t doing much to calm him.

“Nothing. Even her age is just an estimate from the doctors at the hospital,” Mack confirmed. “I understand if you two don’t want to take her, but -”

“No, we’ll take her,” Hunter said, shaking his head. “I just need to have something to tell Fitz when he gets back from the lab other than that there is a baby.”

“There is a baby girl who’s maybe five months old?” Mack suggested. That was about all the detail that they had.

“And you’re sure that they meant to leave her there, and it wasn’t an accident?”

“Hunter, you know no one accidentally forgets something on the doorstep of a S.H.I.E.L.D. base, right?”

Hunter made a soft, distressed noise into the phone. “The alternative isn’t much better!” The alternative being, of course, that someone had wanted to get rid of their child and for some godforsaken reason decided S.H.I.E.L.D. was the best organization to leave her with. Not CPS, not a church, not anyone _normal_ \- no, it had to be S.H.I.E.L.D. 

“Not disagreeing with you there, buddy,” Mack sighed. “I’m in contact with local law enforcement and they’ve promised to let me know if any children are reported missing that match the baby’s description. Jemma’s scheduled an appointment to test her for Inhuman DNA markers, in case that’s why she was left with us, but other than that… I’ve told you everything I know.”

“Thanks, Mack,” Hunter said. “I’ve got to go get everything set up, but I’ll see you soon.”

“Bye, Hunter.”

The empty nursery wasn’t going to be empty for much longer.

\---

“I’m trying really, really hard not to get attached,” Hunter said as he continued rocking himself with one foot. The baby had only been with them for a week, but it was impossible not to think of her as _theirs_ , especially since the circumstances of her coming to them had meant they’d even gotten to pick a name for her.

 _Niamh._ They had chosen an Irish name after being unable to agree on any Scottish name (all of the pretty ones had awful meanings, and Hunter wasn’t willing to let his child grow up and wonder why they had picked a name for her that meant _hag_ ). Irish Gaelic and Scottish Gaelic were two different beasts, but they were similar enough that Fitz still felt he was honoring his heritage in some way by picking an Irish name for the baby.

She seemed to like it, at least as much as any baby could like a name. At the very least she’d never given an indication that it wasn’t the name she was born with; when Hunter cooed it to her at nighttime she cooed and babbled right back at him. 

That was the crux of the problem, Hunter supposed - it was like Niamh had always been theirs, and that simply wasn’t the case. Mack hadn’t gotten anywhere with talking to law enforcement in the area, and no one had come knocking asking for their baby back, but it had only been a week. Hunter didn’t want to allow himself to get even more attached to her, only to find out the baby had been stolen or the surrender otherwise unwilling. 

“It’s okay to get attached,” Fitz said, running a hand through Hunter’s hair idly. “She’s easy to get attached to.”

That was the other omnipresent issue; Niamh was the sweetest baby Hunter had ever seen, and since starting fostering for S.H.I.E.L.D. he’d seen quite a few. She still fussed and cried like every baby did, but she was easy to soothe and gave gummy smiles that made every pout worthwhile. She was what Fitz’s mum referred to as an easy baby, and that had sent Hunter into another tailspin. Did he only love her because she was easy? Of course that hadn’t been what Catriona had meant, but Hunter still wondered.

“Who would give her up?” Hunter asked, tracing one finger over Niamh’s plump cheek. She had come into their home perfectly healthy, which only added to Hunter’s confusion. Whoever had been taking care of her before had been good at it, and then they had just decided to stop? None of it made sense.

Honestly, Hunter was a bit afraid of the results from her DNA test that were supposed to come later in the week. He didn’t trust himself not to go absolutely mental if Niamh did have the Inhuman DNA markers, because if _that_ was the reason someone had given up the precious little girl sleeping in his arms…

“I don’t know,” Fitz said. He bent to press a kiss to the top of Hunter’s head. “But you can’t drive yourself mad guessing.”

That sounded like something Hunter was supposed to say to Fitz - and had a hundred times before, for a hundred different reasons. Guessing about a baby felt different than guessing about other things, though maybe it was because this time Hunter was the one doing the guessing.

“Put her down,” Fitz said. “She’ll still be here in the morning.”

Fitz was right, of course - Hunter put Niamh down in her crib, and when they woke up the next morning she was still there, and still perfect.

\---

“Legally,” Mack said, “she has no parents and is under the guardianship of S.H.I.E.L.D. I’m talking with the state to figure out how we would transfer that guardianship to you two, specifically, and then how guardianship would become a legal adoption.”

Fitz continued bouncing Niamh on his lap while Hunter scribbled down notes from yet another meeting with Mack. It turned out doing everything the legal way was infinitely more difficult than just allowing S.H.I.E.L.D. to be S.H.I.E.L.D. and sweep everything under the rug. Hunter had known that from the beginning, but it was frustrating when he just wanted his baby girl to be his officially.

“Dada,” Niamh chirped just then, as if to remind him of the reason he was willing to slog through the pile of paperwork in the first place.

“Yes, lovey?” Hunter asked, turning to her to see why she needed his attention. Niamh held up one chubby fist, Fitz’s key ring dangling from her hand. “Did Papa give you his keys?”

“Give is a strong word,” Fitz muttered under his breath.

“Are you telling me our baby pick-pocketed you?” Hunter asked, chuckling.

“She coerced me.”

“Fitz. She’s eighteen months old. You can take her in a fight.”

“Physically, yes. But emotionally? Imagine the cost.”

“Love, you can’t just quote a meme to distract from the fact you’re a giant pushover.”

“You’re both giant pushovers,” Mack cut in from across the table.

“Oi, I don’t want to hear that from you!” Mack was notorious for being the biggest softie when it came to his kids - though Hunter thought that was probably more so because he could be a bit of a hard-ass as director. Any Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. had to be a hard-ass, though, and Hunter couldn’t help but feel proud that one of his best friends in the world was doing such a bang-up job of it.

“As I was _saying,_ ” Mack began pointedly. “We don’t really have an idea of the timeline of all of this, but at this point even if her biological parents were to come and try to claim her, you’d probably have just as much right to being her legal guardians as they do.”

“They’re not going to come get her,” Fitz said sadly. The DNA test Niamh had taken when they’d first gotten her had come back positive for the Inhuman markers, and given her parents had known to give her to S.H.I.E.L.D., that seemed like the likeliest reason she had been given up.

It was one question answered, but a hundred more asked. Hunter was trying his best not to let the not knowing eat him alive, but… when the test results had come back, his first response hadn’t been anger, as he’d thought it would be. It was just deep, unrelenting sadness. In all likelihood, one of Niamh’s parents was an Inhuman themself, and to surrender their child… Something must’ve made them afraid - either their own powers, or what they thought Niamh’s could be - and that was heart-breaking. To give a child up for fear…

“That might be true. But I know you’ll both rest easier when this is all tied up.”

Hunter couldn’t disagree with that.

\---

“Oof!” Hunter said, catching Niamh when she threw herself into his arms. “You’re getting so big, Bright!”

“Am not!” Niamh protested, swinging in his arms. “I’m still smaller than you, Daddy!”

“Ah, but you’re going to be smaller than me forever,” Hunter said, smacking a kiss to her cheek. “Those are the rules.”

“But I can get bigger than Papa, right?”

Hunter grinned mischievously. “Yes, lovey. In fact, you need to get bigger than Papa, and then spend the rest of your life teasing him about it, okay?”

“I can hear you!” Fitz called from the kitchen.

“He can hear you!” a smaller voice echoed. 

Hunter hid his chuckle by pressing another kiss into Niamh’s cheek.

“Macaulay’s silly,” Niamh declared.

“Am not!” the boy in question piped back before Hunter could respond.

“Why do you think he’s silly?” Hunter asked, carrying Niamh into the kitchen where Fitz was making their breakfast.

“Cuz he just copies what Papa says.”

“I love Papa!” Macaulay said, rolling his toy train across the kitchen floor. 

“Just cuz you love someone doesn’t mean you gotta copy them!” Niamh insisted. Hunter let her jump down out of his arms so she could plop herself on the floor next to her brother.

“Niamh Sloane, do not touch that train or so help me God -”

“Yes Papa,” Niamh said, snatching her hand back before she could steal Macaulay’s train and cause a scene. Macaulay was more patient with his sister than she deserved sometimes (their angel child had gotten more than a bit of a spunk at the same she’d gotten a baby brother) but he drew the line at his train. How Fitz had known she was reaching for it when he was still paying attention to the pancakes happily bubbling on the stove, Hunter didn’t know. He’d chalk it up to the parental ESP they’d both developed in the past seven years.

“Your mum said she’s running early,” Hunter informed his husband. He’d checked his text messages as soon as he’d gotten out of the shower and was not at all surprised his mother-in-law was ahead of schedule. Catriona would do just about anything to get more time with her grandchildren, from coming early to “accidentally” keeping them a few extra hours. Hunter didn’t mind the extra alone time, but he did wonder if Fitz’s mum would ever realize she didn’t have to trick them into spending more time with her grandchildren.

As if on cue, the doorbell rang. Niamh scampered off - Grandma was always more interesting to her than her brother - and Macaulay scrambled to his feet inelegantly to run after her. He had just gone through another growth spurt that made him look rather gawky despite his chubby four-year-old limbs and made it difficult for him to balance.

“They still need breakfast, Mum,” Fitz shouted into the front hall before his mother could abscond with their children.

“I can take them to M-A-C-C-A-S on the way to my house,” Catriona answered.

Fitz sighed and looked to Hunter, who shrugged. He wasn’t the one who had spent his time that morning making pancakes that were now going to go uneaten.

“Sure, Mum. And remember to have them back -”

“- by seven so they can make their playdate with their cousins. Yes, Leo, I remember.” 

Two minutes later the house was much quieter and much emptier. Fitz had turned off the stove, the pile of pancakes he had already made more than large enough for two. 

“The whole day to ourselves, Dr. Hunter, whatever shall we do?” Hunter asked as he and Fitz settled into the breakfast nook.

“Mr. Fitz, I don’t know what you could possibly be suggesting.” Fitz grinned around his bite of pancakes (which was, in true Fitz fashion, more syrup than pancake).

“It’s probably a good thing we can’t have our own kids biologically,” Hunter mused, propping his legs in Fitz’s lap, “or we’d have a whole litter by now. Your mum is just too helpful.”

“I think she wants us to adopt another,” Fitz admitted. 

“And what do you think?” They hadn’t talked about another child in the two years since they’d adopted Macaulay. Two had been a good place to stop, especially since they had both a girl and a boy. Hunter was worried if they had a third then their children would persuade them into a fourth so the genders were balanced… and since they were adopting and not having children themselves, they could do that sort of thing, and didn’t have any concerns about biological clocks or any other such nonsense.

Fitz shrugged, popping another bite of pancake into his mouth. “At this point, I think we should just see where the journey takes us. If we get another foster placement call that turns into an adoption, that’s great. And if not… well, that’s great too.”

Hunter smiled. They had known at the beginning of this all they’d wanted a child, but if they had planned out every little detail, they wouldn’t have the family they did now. 

Whatever the world had in store, they could conquer it together, so seeing where the journey took them sounded good to Hunter.

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for Kayti ([@kaytikazoo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaytikazoo)) as a part of my 500-follower giveaway on tumblr! It was inspired by one of the drabbles in my intimacy prompts collection, so if you haven't seen that yet, check it out [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26530390/chapters/64666906).


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